A Place of Wonder: Where Science, Faith, and Intent Meet

By Chase Adonai Trudeau (CAT)

Many people I have loved and who are no longer on this earth, and many people I still love, believe that a scientific way of thinking has removed the mysteries that led less educated people to believe in a god. They think the scientific advances demonstrate superior scientific thinking that has led to the erosion of the foundations of faith, an erosion that no longer supports rational faith. If someone you love thinks along these lines, this book may be for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781098017781

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A Place of Wonder

Where Science, Faith, and Intent Meet

Chase Adonai Trudeau (CAT)

ISBN 978-1-0980-1777-4 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-0980-1778-1 (digital)

Copyright © 2022 by Chase Adonai Trudeau (CAT)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Big Bang Spirituality

Invitation

Why Bother Seeking God?

Specified Information or Gibberish?

Evangelicals

What Can Be Known? Rationally Reasoned

Every Season under Heaven

Saint Thomas Aquinas

Agnostics Think God Is Improbable

According to Hoyle

The Human Experience—Ecclesiastes

First Life

Biochemical Predestination?

The Most Mind-Blowing Number Ever Understood by Man

Religion as a Stopgap for Ignorance?

Lucky LucHyem

Code Breaking

Leap of Faith

Dr. Robert Jastrow

The Strong Free Will Theorem

The Fine-Tuning Blessings

Let's Spend a Day at the Races

Probability and Its Other Half, Judgment

Chaperones

Aaron's Accident

Methodological Naturalism

Predestination Answers the Challenge

RNA and the Origin of Life

Remarkable Balance in Physics

Don't Insult Axiomatic Jack

God's Appointed Times

Biblical Evidence to Nonbelievers?

Isaiah's Prophesy of Jesus Christ's Crucifixion

King David's Prophecy of Jesus Christ's Crucifixion

Apostle Matthew's Testimony

Saul Used to Be One of Us

Bertrand Russel

The Declaration of Independence

Charles Darwin

DNA Mapping

Chernobyl and Aboveground Nuclear Testing

Genetic Entropy

Sir Martin Rees

Professor Lee Smolin: On Universe Evolution

Cosmologist Edward R. Harrison

Creating Universes, Michio Kaku

Dr. Richard Dawkins and Archie Bunker Defend Their Faith

How Did Your Parents Meet?

The Pale Blue Dot and the Privileged Planet

Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe

Judgment versus Proof

God Spreads Out the Heavens: Time, Space, and Life in Heaven

We Don't Want the Metaphysical Mixed into Science

Freedom, Grace, and Legalism

Was Isaiah a Prophet?

Bishop Ron Archer Testimony Trick Baby

Amen!

Spiritual Quotient

The End from the Beginning

Occam's Razor

A Man Born Blind

Can We Trust Jesus Christ?

Appendix

The assumptions in radiometric dating are unimportant to a faith journey unless the age of the earth stumbles a person so that they don't believe in God. Radiometric dating is in this appendix because it is complicated and is not directly relevant to a faith journey toward Jesus or His Father, Yahweh. However, for a person trying to have a unity of knowledge, discussion in the mainstream of scientific journalism can conflict with biblical interpretations. Many Christians don't need or want to delve into this diversion and the topics that flow from them.

About the Author

Big Bang Spirituality

Say not in grief, He/she is no more but in thankfulness that he was.

—Hebrew Proverb

In 1970, Stephen Hawking¹ and Roger Penrose showed that if general relativity is a correct model for the universe, then time and space began to exist in the finite past.² According to their theories, this entire universe may have started from a space that is much smaller than a galaxy or planet or a man. It may have started from a point with no dimensions and no size at all.

Stephen Hawking was quoted, Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? It is difficult to discuss the beginning of the universe without mentioning the concept of God. Hawking wasn't religious and argued against the existence of God in the normally understood sense,³ but the Big Bang theory sounds like an enormous act of creation, so the issue comes up.

We say that some ideas are really big ideas, but that is a play on words; really, ideas have no size. Spiritual things are like ideas; they have no size at all, but they may be everywhere.

Roger Penrose was quoted as saying:

There is a certain sense in which I would say the universe has a purpose. It's not there just somehow by chance. Some people take the view that the universe is simply there…and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing… I think there is something much deeper about…its existence, which we have little inkling of at the moment.

So maybe at the start, the universe was like an idea with no size at all. Spiritual things have no size at all, but they can change everything. Sin can loosen its grip, searching people can be set free, the hopeless can be found, and the homeless can be brought home. Emptiness can become fullness, and gratitude can grow around a cynical heart.

So what's the big idea behind such a big universe coming from something as insignificant as an idea? This universe is huge, and this galaxy is tiny in comparison, and this world is a tiny part of this galaxy, and we humans are a tiny part of the matter that makes up this big world. As insignificant as man is compared to the universe, ideas have no size at all! Humans have consciousness. Consciousness is not contained, and consciousness without limits is creation. The Bible records that in the beginning, God said, Let light be, and the light was.

Light reveals what would otherwise be hidden, and if we like what we see, it warms and comforts us.

May the illumination of God bring hope and promise for all those whose consciousness is comforted by these thoughts. May His light warm and comfort all who hunger and thirst and reveal what is missed and hidden to those who have not yet seen God's light.

Invitation

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops—at all.

—Emily Dickinson

Why bother finding out about the creator of the universe? It has nothing to do with daily life.

I believe faith in Jesus Christ is the chance of a lifetime. It's like going home to be with loved ones in a place Jesus Christ called paradise. But scientists have forgotten how to have faith and are leading others to think Jesus Christ is a delusion. But a rational basis for faith in Jesus Christ can be shown, even though proof of who Jesus really was eludes us. This book is for scientific thinkers who haven't completely given up on the idea of faith but don't know how to be secure in their faith or how to overcome the many stumbling blocks which make us doubt.

The Bible tells us Jesus Christ said to seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open to you. Per the Bible, prayer, seeking, and reading are what bear fruit. But why should a person swim against the current of atheism that flows through modern science? Why bother with something as abstruse and invisible as who created the universe? Is presenting Jesus Christ to those not seeking God a waste of time?

The well-meaning but bungling fictional character, Archie Bunker, from All in the Family, defended his faith with something like the following statement, Faith is the ability to believe in what no one in his right mind would believe. This was a TV comedy series that ran from 1971 to 1979. Archie offended, but he was not an intentionally hurtful character. By the way he spoke, the viewers laughed at simple-minded dogma and bigotry of Archie who meant no offense but was offensive in spite of himself. If from time to time you have thought the same thing—Faith is the ability to believe in what no one in his right mind would believe—no worries; there is an intellectually satisfying basis for faith. And it may turn out that the process to faith is a blessing of this life.

If a polite captive sits for a biblical presentation, it is unlikely the captive will have an epiphany that will lead him to God, assuming the presentation doesn't involve a direct personal miracle or brain injury. But if nothing else may these ordinary thoughts increase respect and understanding between people of differing worldviews.

Science and computers both have limits comparing the relative values of love and hate of life and death, of freedom and slavery. The important human judgments are hidden from computers and the scientific process doesn't weigh philosophical positions. We know values and judgments are relevant to our daily lives. But values and judgments which are hidden from science and computers are an essential part of recognizing God.

If you number yourself among the polite captives, please be encouraged and ask yourself, are purely physical causes sufficient to explain the universe we live in and all that is in it? Please, in faith, dive in and tread water with that question and swim for a bit against the current.

Love and blessings to you.

Why Bother Seeking God?

Keeping time, time, time

In a sort of Runic rhyme,

To the throbbing of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells

To the sobbing of the bells;

Keeping time, time, time

As he knells, knells, knells,

In a happy Runic rhyme,

To the rolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells,

To the tolling of the bells,

Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,

Bells, bells, bells,

To the moaning and the groaning of the bells,

—From Edgar Allan Poe, The Bell

When death occurs, breath and blood flow stop. Cells stop functioning from lack of oxygen, lack of energy, and failure of the circulatory system. Neurons in the brain quickly become unable to continue supporting individual personality, and consciousness ceases, followed by the cessation of subconscious processes governing regulation of the body. Skin color changes, and the body cools. Personality of our beloved is now gone, although the body looks intact. With modern times, this unexplained departure of a loved one is no longer a mystical event, just cold reality.

The history of the word inspired contains a spiritual interpretation of breathing born from the mystical interpretation of drawing breath inward. To loved ones remaining behind, it was natural to think the spirit of the deceased has departed when breath stopped. The invisible soul departed with the invisible breath. Modern science provides an explanation so modern humans do not need to invoke an invisible soul departing into an invisible spiritual realm to explain what happens at death.

Why bother inventing an invisible soul and an invisible heaven or hell for these souls to explain what is a physical event? It is simple to think that faith systems passed down from past generations are myths created out of an evolution of stories regarding life and death. Over generations, these stories attached to some points of morality and by now rolled into a larger cultural narrative, and we have grown into that heritage. But our heritage was left to us by our ancestors without the scientific knowledge we have today. How could it even be possible for this idea of a spirit disconnected from the brain to be true?

Further, a perfectly obvious explanation for how the Earth came to exist is easy to find in schools. The universe appears ancient. Stars explode, and gravity compacted matter, and the sun provided heat and light, providing the energy so life could start. Life diversified, finding newer and diverse niches until the world was filled. The structural and behavioral similarities in the mammalian world are strikingly apparent.

Natural laws are always more reliable than human psychology, which is culturally based. If someone speaks and claims that a natural law was violated or that a miracle happened, you may know that it is always more likely that they are mistaken than a law of nature was violated. Even if that mistaken speech is written down in ancient texts, it is still more likely that writing is mistaken rather than natural law violated. So there is no magic. There are no miracles. Logic must stop any thought process that leads to a god of miracles.

How can violations of natural law have occurred in history when we never record that happening in the modern age? Always errors, deceptions, or simple mythology are more likely explanations for miracles, historical or otherwise. Faith is grasping wind in your hands. When you open your hands, nothing is there!

What hope then remains for the faithful to prove a god of miracles who worked ancient wonders. Hasn't modern man moved past the ancient idea of a god? We are left with uncomplicated material reality, and the only remaining question is what we are going to do about it.

Many logical philosophies arrive at a similar foundation, which becomes the foundation of a person's larger view of the world, but stopping at this philosophy may prevent an exploration, which is the chance of a lifetime.

If you have had similar thoughts or questions like the ones above and are still curious how a thinking person can have faith, this book is offered to help with your reconsideration of the chance of this lifetime.

Christ forgave the sins of thieves and murderers and those who were completely lawless. He also forgave those who, while they follow the morals and customs learned from parents and friends, fall short of Gods standard. Grace can rain on those haunted and crushed by guilt. Forgiveness can be found for those who become aware of the depth of pain they have caused. Hope can refill the lives of those who have lost hope, lost their love, and can't move on. Faith gives comfort to those who will die someday and to those who love them. The Bible tells Christians that in paradise with God, tears are washed away and the things of this life will soon not be brought to mind. This idea has been quietly summarized in song lyrics, Earth has no sorrow heaven can't heal.⁴

This book will not be restating what many Christians believe is the most extraordinary evidence for belief in God. This presentation will not address the small miracle of a personal prayer answered. It does not replace observing the transformed life of a new believer or seeing deeply the amazing world around us.

This book will not be researching the amazing match between the Old Testament stories and archaeological finds. It doesn't compare how the Dead Sea Scrolls fit nicely with archaeological finds or the ancient writings of the Old Testament, such as Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and the several works of Moses, which harmoniously foreshadow a picture of the Christ who came to Earth in a physical body. Nor will this book attempt to add to the extraordinary and convincing testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, and Jude.

This book examines stumbling blocks which may have stopped short a heartfelt search for what is the chance of a lifetime.

Witnesses testified of Jesus Christ's power over his hunger and thirst, wind and waves, sickness and infirmity, life and death, and all aspects of nature; but most people today are not ready to accept the testimony of miracles. Even more, the Bible warns us not to believe someone is from God because they perform miracles. Even if one could believe in miracles, and this story line, how could the stories of Jesus meet the challenge of proving that He is the Son of God?

How can anyone have faith to believe the good news that a paradise may await us when our time on Earth is over? Even miracles are not enough. How promising a future do we have believing in what no one in his right mind would believe? This book will explore an intellectually satisfying basis for a faith, which converges around a reality that overpowers simply material or observational philosophy.

Faith is reading a book that has been offered and offering a book to be read. The arc of thought that liberates intellectual rational faith does not pretend to force faith.

This book is offered for pleasure and understanding rather than trying to prove something. This book steps beyond Mr. Bunker's analysis and examines common conceptual stumbling blocks to faith and provides some key foundations of faith. It offers Christians a confident faith in Jesus Christ; for seekers, a rational foundation for their continued faith journey; and for onlookers, a better understanding of rational Christian faith.

Chances are the one who gave you this book loves you and hopes to be with you in heaven, and perhaps that love has opened this book to its first pages. That's a nice place to start.

This book is offered to breathe renewed spirit into a faith journey. The book is written from a Christian perspective. However, the first part of this book applies generally to faith in a creator.

Please walk along and accept the apology of the author in advance because although this book is written to be informative and fun, some of the concepts are at the heart of personal belief systems; and when belief systems are questioned, human nature floats to the surface. Glean what seems useful to you, and don't sweat the small stuff. The arc of concepts was painted with a broader brush.

Specified Information or Gibberish?

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze,

A visitant that while it fans my cheek

Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings

from the green fields, and from yon azure sky…

—William Wordsworth, The Prelude

What is specified gibberish? Please consider a silly story to access a twist on a distinction which untangles what comes later.

Imagine a mad scientist who decides that Neanderthals with their close family ties and worshipful nature should not have been overrun by the more violent Cro-Magnons. He imagines if the Neanderthal had U2 spy planes that would be a sufficient advantage for avoiding rapid demise. So he figures out how to send U2 aircraft plans back in time to help the Neanderthals resist the Cro-Magnons expansionism into Europe.⁵ If man were less violent, imagine how world history would have changed.

Ignoring, for now, serious moral questions of changing history, with deep thoughts, let's examine some issues related to giving U2 aircraft plans to Neanderthals.

From available records, it is currently believed Neanderthals did not have a great grasp of chemistry and were not advanced in metallurgy. They didn't have gasoline-handling systems, hoses, or sealed containers, so they would have had to carry the gasoline in wooden bowls. Also, there is no evidence of Neanderthal petrol refineries. Their teeth couldn't actually cut steel or shape glass. Copper wiring, electrical dynamos, and computers of Neanderthals were crude to say the least. Their precision bearings were the gravel rolling under foot.

A small problem is that they had no formal trade school system to teach airplane craftsmanship. Those become far less significant issues considering that they had no paper and couldn't read, write, or copy the plans. So they would have only the one set of plans. They would have to use the same set of plans for each step of the process while keeping the instructions dry, without losing the pages, mutilating them, or using them as pillows, blankets, or for wiping their bottoms. Even if they could read the plans, they wouldn't understand them because they don't understand English, machining symbols or Spy Plane Geek Speak.

But a bigger problem is they were not nearly organized enough to specialize in making all the components. And a far bigger problem is Neanderthals didn't want to build spy planes!

After careful review and consideration, one may conclude we might as well stuff our elegant U2 plans down a termite mound as send them to a bunch of Neanderthals! These plans are useless to them, but the plans aren't gibberish either, and only in a specific setting can they be used.

DNA, like U2 plans, is specified information useful within a particular setting. Translation problems can hide it, but in exactly the right setting, the information can be expressed.⁶ DNA doesn't build anything by itself. DNA encodes specified information, and in the perfect setting of a special cell in a mother's womb, it can provide instructions to build a U2, sometimes twins or even triplets.

For this book, specified information is information that is useful in specific settings. Specified information is distinct from random information. Specified information can be translated into many formats, and the intellect behind the information is, in part, revealed when the intent is understood and translated, but random information is gibberish in any language.

The key distinction between gibberish and information that specifies something is the point of this spy plane story.

Specified information exists and can be moved and shared, but what kind of beast is it? Information is not matter or energy. It is not a force or a momentum. Information is not chemical, electrical, time, nor is it a number. The concept called information blurs the line between things and not things.

Specified information (specification) is the inverse of randomness. But if a random string of information is added to specified information, then the specified information becomes random as well and is forever gibberish.

The chart of the standard model of elementary particles shows organization of quarks, bosons and leptons and their mass, charges, and spin properties. The elementary particles along with the rules of quantum mechanics give rise to the periodic table of elements, which shows atomic numbers and weights of all the atoms. Humans organized these charts to help understand the organization of the elementary particles and the behavior of atoms.

When elementary particles, quantum mechanics, and the periodic table combined, were the results random destruction of information? No! Not merely life became possible, but for souls who lived by faith, a possibility greater than this life has been promised. Physics and chemistry add up to specify something because none of its parts are random.

Specified information: relish on a hotdog at a ball game on a sunny day in spring.

Gibberish to the mind is like Christians to atheists, Republicans to Democrats, Seattle Sounders to Portland Timbers, or Goliath to David.

Our intuitive understanding of information points toward a nonphysical reality within a physical world. The nonphysical reality, information, paints our ideas and colors our understanding. Information is also quite relevant to the understanding of what God has done.

Evangelicals

Maybe culture is to humans like water is to fish.

—David Foster Wallace (paraphrased)

Orca whales in Puget Sound eat salmon almost exclusively. Young male Orca whales temporarily developed a strange fashion statement of balancing dead salmon across their forehead and keeping them there as long as they could. It started with one male and then caught on to become all the rage. Can you imagine how that made their mothers feel? Don't play with your food, and get that dead salmon off your head right this minute! He is so disrespectful. Happily, after all the young male Orcas started doing it, the fad lost its intrigue and faded away.

We are immersed in the culture that we grow up with. The fish we wear or don't wear, the language we speak, our values, our religion, and our worldview became part of us and nourished us and allowed us to grow.

The culture we grow in is growing into us as our worldview and values develop and we mature. We may balance morals, agonize, prioritize, and make mistakes to turn from. We may come to believe very strongly there is really no truth to believe in, but hopefully, eventually, find our place, pick our niche, and decide who we will be in the culture we live in. This development normally happens over many years, and in the process, we will clash with friends and family over religion, politics, and who we are becoming.

The culture clash can be over something as simple as attitude. Don't look at me with that attitude! Or how we greet each other. Yo, daawg, wherzit lean'n, bawss dog?

Can you believe how they're ruining my Americanized English? I mentally cloud them with a toxic unfriendliness.

Or hot button issues religion and politics can set people off. Do you ever hear angry tones of misunderstanding in religion or politics? We aren't getting anywhere here. We are just going around in circles! No, listen! Let me finish my sentence!

Some folks know they will feel these emotions when their culture and worldview are assaulted and will deliberately try developing, understanding, or gleaning what has the most value in the opposite view.

Two subcultures that clash are an Evangelical Christian and an Evangelical Scientist. Each side tries to persuade the other its interpretation of the facts is more true.

Oversimplified, one might characterize Evangelical Christians as more interested in things of God than things of science and the Evangelical Scientist as more interested in the things of science than of God.

When children are raised in a church system, which focuses on spreading the good news of Jesus Christ, they tend to look for God and find Him within that framework but may be at the cost of seeing God within areas of science.

When a young man or woman spends his education within the scientific community, he will look for truth within that scientific framework but will be at a loss when trying to find God in a nonmaterial reality.

How can you believe in a God of miracles when you don't believe in miracles? And how can you believe in miracles when you don't believe in a God? This circular logic provides no reason to come to faith or to reveal God.

As we explore differences between scientific and Christian cultures, hopefully, some cultural stumbling blocks to a faith discussion can be dispelled with humor and patience, but it would be naive not to expect a clash of cultures on both sides. With understanding and a little humor, let's examine the foundations—what can be known in science or faith and what is reasonable to believe.

What Can Be Known? Rationally Reasoned

To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.⁷

—Ecclesiastes 3:1

Is there truth? And how do we know?

It came as a surprise that entire books have been written on whether we exist and whether we can know any objective thing.

A sixteenth century French philosopher, René Descartes, asked himself a question: What can be known without any doubt? Eventually, he decided what can be known without doubt is, "Je pense, donc je suis"⁸ which translated means, I think, therefore I am.

I wonder what René's father would have said? René, can't you think while you're milking the cow and then while you're mucking out the stable?

To which René might answer, Why should I listen to you, background noise in my mind? I do not know that you are real.

Well says Papa, if you don't get busy, you're going to experience physical reality—directly!

But is Je pense, donc je suis philosophically sound? Some philosophers say Descartes went away too far in his assumptions! Maybe I am a ghostlike character in a fictional story and will disappear when J. R. R. Tolkien wakes up!

Discounting Descartes, those philosophers might be more comfortable with saying, I think, therefore I am, but I am not sure. I could be wrong. Maybe I just think that I think, so I think that I am, but really, I am not!

Years and years of fascinating contemplation by some of the most brilliant Cro-Magnons to have walked our streets have been recorded in the pages of philosophy on the nature of reality.

So let's jump right in as well. First, set up a basic set of assumptions, which are self-consistent and not arbitrary. Following rules of logic as rational people, let's set up an evidence based and nonarbitrary starting point. A foundation, if you will, that provides a starting place for logic and reason, which will build and build until from this simple beginning, we demonstrate a satisfying foundation for living, morality, and then prove whether a god exists. How about that?

Sound about as fun as buckling a wildcat in a car seat?

If philosophers are right in that they can't prove without a doubt they exist,⁹ what chance have we to know that God exists? Or that without God, there is no objective morality? Or that without God, logic has no rational foundation? What chance do we have to prove, without a doubt, doubtable things like that?

Maybe like Hitler's chance to play first harpsichord in heaven? Unlikely!

That doesn't stop people from returning again and again to try to prove to others that God exists.

Aren't we being egotistical to imagine we can decide for others or ourselves if God exists?

God's invitation to heaven does not rely on our abilities to prove He exists. While we can't prove God exists, we can walk along and examine some rational reasons, rational people. Start with God.

Every Season under Heaven

King Solomon's three-thousand-year-old teachings on the seasons of life are recorded in the book Ecclesiastes, which can be found in any Bible. The most basic time for everything and time for every season under heaven is this: a time to be born and a time to die.

Let's listen in as a father learns about this season in the eyes of six-year-old Carter and his eleven-year-old brother William.

Carter. Dad. Do you remember when PaPop fell down?

Dad. Yes, I remember.

Carter. After, he was in that shiny box.

William. Carter, that is called a casket.

Carter. Our friends came over. I had fun with Mason.

Dad. Yes, that was last Saturday.

Carter. Pastor Kevin came. I saw PaPop in the box.

William. I'm going to play. See you later.

Carter. There was a hole under the box under a curtain. Do you remember?

Dad. Yes.

Carter. What happened to the box? PaPop was in it?

Dad. After you left with your mother the, box was gently lowered into the hole. I helped do that. Then the box was buried in the ground. And I came home.

Carter. Is PaPop still in the box?

Dad. Yes, his body is in the box. But his soul is with God.

Carter. Let's get him out. Let's get him out!

Dad. My father doesn't want to come out.

Carter. I want him out. He doesn't want to be there. Why did you put him there?

Dad. My father's body doesn't work anymore. It—his body—can't hold his soul. He is in heaven. Understand?

Carter. He wants to come out. I know it. He doesn't want to be there. Let's go get him out. I love PaPop. He is nice to me. (Pulling away) Let's go!

Dad. Son. Do you trust me?

Carter. Yes.

Dad. Someday… I don't know how to tell you, but my father, he… Carter, will you trust me?

Carter. My eyes hurt, Dad.

Dad. We can go there sometime, and you can tell PaPop everything. Would you like that?

Carter. Will you come?

Dad. Yes. We can go this Saturday.

Carter. William put Nueve in a shoebox. Do you remember, Dad?

Dad. Yes. I remember William buried the shoebox behind the swing behind the bushes. He painted a rock white and wrote Nueve on it. He painted a yellow lizard on it and left the rock right above the spot. Now he can go back whenever he wants. Then he can remember where to go visit. Right?

Carter. I saw it. We could put PaPop there too so we could (visit) every day.

Dad. That would be nice, but Pop told me where he wanted to be buried, so we will let him stay where he is. Okay?

Carter. I am going outside.

Dad. Love you…

Carter. Bye.

Dad. So much.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

All that I have written seems to me nothing but straw, compared to what I have seen, and what has been revealed to me.

—St. Thomas Aquinas

He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.

—Laozi

I